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    The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story
    The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story
    The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story
    Ebook30 pages21 minutes

    The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story

    By Ursula K. Le Guin

    4.5/5

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    About this ebook

    “Ursula Le Guin is more than just a writer of adult fantasy and science fiction . . . she is a philosopher; an explorer in the landscapes of the mind.” – Cincinnati Enquirer

    The recipient of numerous literary prizes, including the National Book Award, the Kafka Award, and the Pushcart Prize, Ursula K. Le Guin is renowned for her spare, elegant prose, rich characterization, and diverse worlds. "The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas" is a short story originally published in the collection The Wind's Twelve Quarters.

    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherHarperCollins
    Release dateFeb 14, 2017
    ISBN9780062470973
    The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas: A Story
    Author

    Ursula K. Le Guin

    Ursula Kroeber Le Guin (1929-2018) was a celebrated author whose body of work includes twenty-three novels, twelve volumes of short stories, eleven volumes of poetry, thirteen children’s books, five essay collections, and four works of translation. The breadth and imagination of her work earned her six Nebula Awards, seven Hugo Awards, and SFWA’s Grand Master, along with the PEN/Malamud and many other awards. In 2014 she was awarded the National Book Foundation Medal for Distinguished Contribution to American Letters, and in 2016 she joined the short list of authors to be published in their lifetimes by the Library of America.

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    Reviews for The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

    4.5/5

    186 ratings11 reviews

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    • 4/5
      Short but Impactful. I recommend to read the introduction later if you don’t want the story to be spoiled but it’s more about the questions that reading it makes you think of rather than what happens.
    • 5/5
      Sort of a mirror to what's happening in society now.
    • 5/5
      One of the best short stories I have ever read. Ursula at her best.
    • 5/5
      We all know this reality, but fail to accept. The author's way of showing us the reality yet again is intriguing & hard-hitting.
    • 5/5
      This (very) short tale introduces a eye opening question. You just have to read it!

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      Beautiful short story by one of the best sci-fi writers.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 5/5
      My heart. Wow. This is incredible. I totally recommend it. It is beautiful and quite moving.

      1 person found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Someone wrote in a review on here that this isn’t the entire short story but this is. Don’t let that person fool you. It’s a short read but definitely worth it.

      2 people found this helpful

    • 4/5
      Super short and interesting. Will make you think about what beings are suffering on our planet now for our pleasure.
    • 5/5
      It is such a beautiful novel. I loved it to pieces and wish everyone would read it just once in their lives. Also, there is a competition right now until the end of May with a theme Werewolf on the NovelStar app, I hope you can consider joining. If you have more stories like this, you can also publish them there just email the editors hardy@novelstar.top, joye@novelstar.top lena@novelstar.top.
    • 1/5
      This is not the full book. It is an excerpt linking to another online book service. It is deceptive marketing on Scribd’s behalf to allow these kinds of tactics.

      2 people found this helpful

    Book preview

    The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas - Ursula K. Le Guin

    CONTENTS

    The Ones Who Walk Away from Omelas

    Afterword

    About the Author

    Praise

    Also by Ursula K. Le Guin

    Back Ads

    Copyright

    About the Publisher

    THE ONES WHO WALK AWAY FROM OMELAS

    (Variations on a theme by William James)

    The central idea of this psychomyth, the scapegoat, turns up in Dostoyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov, and several people have asked me, rather suspiciously, why I gave the credit to William James. The fact is, I haven’t been able to re-read Dostoyevsky, much as I loved him, since I was twenty-five, and I’d simply forgotten he used the idea. But when I met it in James’s The Moral Philosopher and the Moral Life, it was with a shock of recognition. Here is how James puts it:

    Or if the hypothesis were offered us of a world in which Messrs. Fourier’s and Bellamy’s and Morris’s utopias should all be outdone, and millions kept permanently happy on the one simple condition that a certain lost soul on the far-off edge of things should lead a life of lonely torment, what except a specifical and independent sort of emotion can it be which would make us immediately feel, even though an impulse arose within us to clutch at the happiness so offered, how hideous a thing would be its enjoyment when deliberately accepted as the fruit of such a bargain?

    The dilemma of the American conscience can hardly be better stated. Dostoyevsky was a great artist, and

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